There were never any good choices in Egypt, but the problem is that President Obama hasn’t made any. He’s tried to have it all. He didn’t quite support the “Arab Spring” in Egypt until he did, he supported Mubarak until he didn’t, he supported Morsi until he didn’t, he was against the coup that wasn’t a coup but he’ll scold the violent crackdown without going so far as to withhold our foreign aid as he’s required to by law.
Whew.
No wonder critics are calling Obama’s Egypt policy (he has one?) “incoherent” and that he carries “no stick.”
We very well may be through in the Middle East for a generation. Part of me is happy we get to wash our hands of the place, but mostly I’m worried about the increasing violence
that will eventually find its way to our shores. 9/11 was about the Middle East exporting it pathologies, which the local governments were barely able to contain. The Iraq War was about trying to help alleviate them. Now the lid is coming off completely, and there’s no telling what comes next.
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